Mass Comm Week: October 21, 2014

Stacie Chan, from Google, and Annie Werner, from Tumblr, hosted today’s session. They ran through where they started, how they got the jobs they have today and offered advice on getting the most out of college classes and creating your digital footprint. What I found most interesting was their take on diversity in the work place. Both Annie and Stacie talked about their company’s attempts to diversify their work place. Google and Tumblr both fell short on having an equivalent number of men and women employed by the company. Stacie said the importance of diversity stems form representing many different viewpoints. Google serves a population that is 50 percent women. I had never thought about it that way. Why wouldn’t your staff reflect the demographics you serve? Annie made the point that tech companies are looking for coders who are predominately men and are failing to hire people in departments such as marketing and community management where the percentage of qualified women is higher. I enjoyed both of the speakers and feel they each brought a different perspective on how to attain a job you want as well as how to brand yourself to help achieve it.